Our View: The right place at the right time

Thursday

Oct 31, 2013 at 12:01 AM

Trade missions from Germany, Scotland and China will have been through New Bedford before November is over (if all goes well — China's mission had to be rescheduled because of visa trouble, thanks to the government shutdown), all to hear the city's pitch that it will be the first and best choice for the offshore wind industry in the United States.

Trade missions from Germany, Scotland and China will have been through New Bedford before November is over (if all goes well — China's mission had to be rescheduled because of visa trouble, thanks to the government shutdown), all to hear the city's pitch that it will be the first and best choice for the offshore wind industry in the United States.

In the first of those missions last week, two members of a German delegation from Hamburg and New Bedford's new sister city Cuxhaven painted an interesting comparison: Cuxhaven, 10 years into an offshore wind master plan that today is deploying turbines for six different wind farms, and New Bedford, twice the size but with so many similarities as to stoke the fires of optimism about its role as a 21st-century industry leader.

There are several lessons to be gained from Cuxhaven's experience.

1. Cuxhaven, which sits on the shore of the North Sea at the mouth of the Elbe River, was the first port ready for Germany's offshore wind industry.

That has made a vast difference in the opportunities for the town. The companies — some of the world's largest — looking to install offshore wind facilities can spend two or three years scouting the best ports with access to the areas to be developed. Cuxhaven was in the right place, and because of its first-mover status, at the right time.

2. The town has also made it easy for companies to get through the years-long process by providing a clearinghouse for prospective deployments. Scouting considers the supply chain, the workforce, the quality of the ocean floor, housing for construction workers and trainees, and attractiveness as a destination, and Cuxhaven has a municipal entity that provides information on all those fronts.

3. It has gone from a 16 percent unemployment rate a dozen years ago to less than 7 percent today, but it hasn't happened overnight.

In fact, Hans-Joachim Stietzel, the town's economic development director, said the education system is starting to supply the wind industry's specialized workforce needs with home-grown talent, seven years after the first wind farm was constructed. It's a chicken-and-egg question we hear all the time when discussing SouthCoast economic development: How can we attract high-tech industry when we can't supply the workforce?

Cuxhaven's answer is that you have to start somewhere: Draw the workforce from out of town for now (remembering the town has long been a tourist destination), and let the local workforce grow up organically.

Those working to duplicate Cuxhaven's success in New Bedford have good reason to see the glass as half full.

On point 1, the Acushnet River, South Terminal, hurricane dike, generations of maritime skill and tradition, and proximity to prime offshore wind sources position the city head and shoulders above all competitors.

The newly established Wind Energy Center, headed by Matthew Morrissey, is pulling together all the resources to satisfy the second point.

And on the third point, rather than waiting for the active industry to spur training and enthusiasm around the specialized jobs, the region's schools are training workers today.

In an editorial board meeting last week with the Cuxhaven officials, Morrissey and Mayor Jon Mitchell, the mayor said the city's significant investment in time and money will allow it to strike while the iron is hot.

There's no way to guarantee that the political, economic or innovation climate won't shift dramatically before an offshore wind turbine is ever deployed out of New Bedford Harbor, but the right moves are being made, which draws success closer every day.